And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? Luke 18:8 (TJANT)
Grant Justice – Widows and Judges Series – Part 2
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6
Luke said that Jesus told this story to show people that they should pray consistently and never give up:
“In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” (Luke 18:2-5 TJANT.)
Yep. That’s it. That’s the story that’s meant to teach us how to be unwavering in prayer.
One city.
Two people.
A nasty judge.
A justice-seeking widow.
Justice granted because “Leave me alone, thank you.”
I’ve been taught this parable since childhood, and it's never really made sense to me.
I get it (kind of) from the perspective of the widow: she wants justice, and she doesn’t give up. But the Judge’s character has never really sat well with me.
If we’re going to treat this story as an allegory, then the widow is us, her cry for justice is our prayer, and there is no other character for the judge to be than God. But Jesus made a point of saying that the judge had no fear of God and no respect for people.
Sorry, the allegory doesn't work.
And it doesn’t for many scholars, either.
It starts to get a little more interesting, and challenging when we treat this story like it's meant to be: a parable. We know that it’s meant to disrupt us, make us think, feel uncomfortable, because that's what a parable is meant to do. We know there must be a hook, or a trick in there somewhere; it’s too easy otherwise. So let’s turn the gem of this multifaceted story… what else could it be saying to us?
For starters, forget the heading. It was added centuries after Luke wrote his memoir, and does nothing but throw us off the scent of the meaning of the parable.
This is what we know for sure about this story:
It’s meant to be provocative.
It’s about prayer and never giving up.
It’s about a widow and a judge and an answered cry for help (or is it… more on that later).
It's about being faithful.
The strangest part of the parable are the words Jesus says afterward:
“Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:6-8 The Jewish Anotated New Testament.)
Verse six and seven are nice and comforting and make me feel good, but verse eight? What the heck does that have to do with our story about prayer, a widow, a judge, and justice?
Perhaps, first of all, we should let go of our preconceived ideas of what prayer, widows, judges, and justice look like. Because after all, when Jesus spoke about justice, he often said weird things like love your enemies, do good to those who do wrong by you.. he spoke about compassion and forgiveness and grace and love. He opposed an unjust justice system and was murdered for it. There could be more going on in parable story than we think…
If we can sink into these ideas for a moment, or forever, we might start to see what faithfulness could be.
What do you think could be going on here?
Go to Part 3 – Prayer is Not Something We Do »
Written by Lizzy Milani
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